iCARE FOODBANK BRINGS SUCCOUR TO GRASSROOT, GIVES 5,000 RELIEF MATERIALS TO CDAs, OTHERS ACROSS IKORODU DIVISION. The gesture is aimed at alleviating the suffering of my Constituents, Hon. Babajimi Benson reveals.
A Non-Governmental Organization, iCARE Foodbank, owned by Hon. Babajimi Adekoge Benson, member, House of Reps, representing Ikorodu federal Constituency, has again joined in the fight against the spread of Coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19, by distributing food and relief materials to the vulnerable and other less privileged at the grassroot, to help in celebrating the Easter festival and also cushion the effects of the partial lockdown.
Hon. Benson, who doubled as the Chairman, House Committee on Defence, distributed about 5,000 relief package to 1,000 CDAs across Ikorodu federal Constituency, by selecting 5 vulnerable from each CDA, noting that the gesture is aimed at alleviating the suffering of the people of Ikorodu. Also, Community leaders, Youth organisations, religious and political leaders were equally helped the iCARE Foodbank in redistributing the relief items to the needy.
While giving out the relief materials through his foundation, Benson, exclusively admonished the residents through MegaXpression Community News, to obey government directives on the prevention and control of the virus by staying at home at the scheduled time until otherwise directed.
"We are trying to make this lockdown as comfortable as possible, we are trying to reach out to many people who are vulnerable. We are using the CDAs structures by going through the CDCs. The CDAs Chairmen nominated 5 people within their CDAs that are vulnerable and we does that across Ikorodu federal Constituency, which have over 1,000 CDAs," he said.
While assessing the level of compliance on the lockdown, Benson exhibited dissatisfaction, saying we can do better because the Stay at home hasn't been 100% compliance. "If we look at what is going on in the world, USA for example had about 50 cases in February and in April, it's about 300,000 cases and I think approximately 15,000 have died.
"We are extremely lucky at this end and we should not push our luck too far. We should listen to all established protocols by the State government and Federal Government. It is also scary looking at the amounts of deaths and over 60% of deaths in America are black people. So it is not a white man disease, it can affect anybody, we need to establish those protocols, it is easier to prevent than to cure," Hon. Benson explained.
He further stated that the House of Representatives is not leaving any stone unturned, by donating their salaries and constantly monitoring the COVID-19 Team, Presidential Task Force, our Committee on Health and the Ministry of Health as well. "About days ago, Nigerians that were harassed in China, we took it up and we are handling it. We are very concern with what is happening and each Representative is doing something within their Federal Constituency to bring relief, Benson added.
The Director General, iCARE Foundation, Mayor Muyideen Sanwoola, also exclusively said to MegaXpression Community News that this month iCARE food distribution is bigger and spectacular. "Apart from the food distribution holding monthly by the iCARE foodbank, this edition is special because of the COVID-19 lockdown and we equally want people to have wonderful Easter celebration. That is why we timed it to be on Easter Sunday.
"A lot of logistics problem that we faced has to do with social distancing and I remember challenging someone to tell me how food can be distributed in Nigeria and still maintain social distancing, it is very difficult. So that is why it took this long for us to plan and figure out a way to get it to the people and they are not crowded. We gave the relief items to the CDCs Chairmen (6 in numbers), they will now call their zonal or joint CDAs Chairmen to hand it over to them, we are kind of splitting it up," Sanwoola said.
"We are only giving the relief items to CDAs that have sent us names of five recipients ahead of today. In a CDA, they may have 60 houses but there is no way we can cover the entire CDAs at once. Let me equally use this opportunity to thank 'We Stand Foundation' Adebukola Foundation and Mr Bayo Lawson, for donating 800 relief packs to iCARE Foodbank. We are sincerely glad for your contributions," Sanwoola remarked.
While responding to the uncommon gesture of iCARE Foodbank, Pastor Abayomi Adelakun, CDC Chairman, Igbogbo/Bayeku LCDA, said he is not surprise that Hon. Babajimi Benson is doing this, because he has always been doing this on monthly bases to all the CDAs, but now, he is even enlarging it beyond what he has been doing in monthly bases.
"We want to appreciate the iCARE Foundation, they have done a very good job and we have been able to collate all the names of the beneficiaries and they have called them one after the other with strict instruction, that we should make it get to the roots".
"So, on our part as CDCs, we are going to identity all the zones that we have and we will also tell all the CDAs Chairmen to work with their zones for proper delivery and report back to CDC. Make sure all the beneficiaries sign and there should be no collection by proxy, it should be on bases that we use the list that given to us," Adelakun explained.
Other CDCs Chairmen in attendance were Alhaji Lukman Shonibare of Ikorodu Central, Prince Niran of Ikorodu North LCDA, Mr Idowu Bashir Raheem of Ikorodu West LCDA, Mr Rotimi Ayoku-Towolawi of Ijede LCDA, amongst others.
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CDC Chairmen, Ikorodu North, Ikorodu West and Ijede LCDAs
God bless you honorable babajimi omo Benson more more blessing more power to your elbow
ReplyDeleteThis was distributed to their own people and party members, cos I didn't see anything of such in my area at igbogbo
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